Skip to content
News
Link copied to clipboard

Dispute delays voter ID trial

HARRISBURG - A dispute over the number of voters who could not obtain proper identification to vote in last year's election delayed closing arguments in the voter ID trial Wednesday.

HARRISBURG - A dispute over the number of voters who could not obtain proper identification to vote in last year's election delayed closing arguments in the voter ID trial Wednesday.

Witold Walczak, the American Civil Liberties Union lawyer representing petitioners in the case, said at least 50 voters would not have received IDs needed to vote last fall and would have been disenfranchised in November's election, based on conservative estimates produced by the state.

"There were hundreds of people who went to PennDot and came away without an ID," Walczak said, adding that problems existed even after the state created a Department of State ID for voting that did not require registered voters to produce a birth certificate.

Alicia Hickok, an attorney with Drinker Biddle who is representing the commonwealth, disputed the petitioners' calculation of voters without IDs and said the state had since implemented policies to avoid the problems that led to the ID delays.

"Of all the IDs handed out since the election, only five are in the exception process because they had not first registered," she said. "The process has gotten much more efficient."

Meanwhile, the legal team representing the commonwealth filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, arguing that the petitioners - among them the League of Women Voters and the NAACP - had not produced enough evidence to prove their case.

Closing arguments are expected to be completed Thursday.

It is not clear when Commonwealth Court Judge Bernard McGinley will rule. Both sides have said they will appeal to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.